Book info

• Title QI: The Book of General Ignorance
• Author John Lloyd
• Year 2006
• Genre Non-fiction

An indispensable compendium of popular misconceptions, misunderstandings and common mistakes culled from the hit BBC show, QI. If, like Alan Davies, you still think the Henry VIII had six wives, the earth has only one moon, that George Washington was the first president of the USA, that Bangkok is the capital of Thailand, that the largest living thing is a blue whale, that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, that whisky and bagpipes come from Scotland or that Mount Everest is the world's tallest mountain, then there are at least 200 reasons why this is the book for you.

Thoughts

If you’re a fan of the TV show, you’ll be a fan of this book. The panel show heads through hundreds of different facts, dispels the myths from the legends and rips up what you think you know, replacing it with new information - or at least some question marks. From history to science, technology and culture, there’s a little bit of everything.

The book mimics that, with a handful of questions that you would quickly jump to answer before finding out you’re totally wrong and things aren’t exactly as they seem. It’s written in a really interesting way, although as always with this style of book, there’s so much information I’m not entirely sure how much of it I will retain or be able to recall in a couple of weeks.

Nevertheless, it’s a cracking read, and the bonus snippets of transcript from the show itself add to the excellent humour displayed within.

Rating: 4 / 5